Early childhood education places have become a rare commodity in Deniliquin, and it's impacting on workforce and overall population growth.
Local parents are being restricted from returning to work because they do not have access to places.
And the same issue is stopping new families coming to the area to take up job vacancies.
Overall education is also at risk, with some children facing the possibility of starting primary school without any formal early education.
With most providers already taking the maximum number of children allowable, they say the only real solution is more early education centres.
But that may be at least two years away.
A new preschool is to be established in Deniliquin, on the grounds of Deniliquin South School and funded by the NSW Government, but is not expected to be delivered until 2027.
The development application for another childcare centre was also put to Edward River Council in August last year, but there appears to have been no progress on that project since.
Some childcare centres say, however, the new centres will not even solve the problem.
They will still not satisfy demand, and Goodstart Early Learning Centre director Candice Emery said there’s unlikely to be enough qualified staff to run them.
She said due to a lack of qualified staff, Goodstart is operating at only 75 per cent of its 51 children per day capacity. The centre’s waiting list is now at 127 children.
“Attraction and retention of qualified educators is difficult, and part of the reason for that is not having adequate housing for new staff to relocate - it’s impossible,” Mrs Emery said.
“The community cannot fully support its current workforce, let alone attracting more.
“What qualified educator is going to come to Deniliquin, or stay, if they can’t get a house or even get on the books for a local doctor?
“There’s no way building a new centre in town would be a solution if we can’t get the staff for it.
“We need to see some incentives - either from local, state or federal government.”
Staff retention is also limiting the number of placements available through the Intereach Family Day Care model.
With only six of its 75 educators based in Deniliquin, placements are limited to 24 across the community (a maximum of four each).
“Educators can only provide education and care to ratio numbers determined by regulations.” Intereach Family Day Care program manager Rebecca Fitzpatrick said.
“Intereach has been trying to attract and recruit educators for some time with limited success. We also have an ageing demographic of educators which will further impact placements if we cannot recruit.
“We have 64 families on the wait list, including some families already receiving education and care who still require additional days.”
The limitation also extends to temporary out of school hours care, with Family Day Care educators only permitted to take three school aged children each, and the OOSH centre in Deniliquin at capacity with 60 children a day and a wait list of more than 20 children.
River Regional Early Education general manager Felicity Michael said “unprecedented demand” has also seen their wait list blow out to 200 children.
This includes families without any places for their children, and existing families wanting additional days for their children.
Data sourced by the centre for advocacy purposes shows that the 2023 Census indicated there are 738 children aged 0-4 years in the Edward River Council area, and there are 232 early learning places in Deniliquin - including preschool, family day care and childcare services.
“This means that today 69 per cent of children do not have a place,” Mrs Michael said.
“By 2027, hopefully there will be an additional 58 places with the South School preschool and another childcare centre that has development approval.
“But even with those places, 61 per cent of children will still be without a place.
“The best estimate of why the demand has grown is that the cost of living pressures, together with workforce shortages, mean that more parents need to return to the workforce for more days and earlier.
“Workforce pressures in early childhood services also exist. An early childhood educators’ pay is not commensurate with their school counterparts.
“The Federal Government Worker Retention grant - which is a 15 per cent pay rise for childcare workers over the next two years - is a step in the right direction.
“There is pressure on the New South Wales Government to fund a similar pay rise for preschool educators.
“The RISE group - the Riverina Initiative for Support of Educators, which is a collective of early childhood services in Deniliquin, Finley and Jerilderie - is working towards addressing this shortage.
“The proposed Country University Centre for Deniliquin and Finley would also be a wonderful way of getting more bachelor qualified early childhood teachers in our community.”
Gulpa Preschool director Angela Bould said also potentially driving the demand for preschool in particular is the Federal Government funded program to increase access to early education before primary school.
“The government has said they want to see children do at least 600 hours of preschool before starting primary school, and are helping to pay for that,” Ms Bould said.
“It started in the COVID years, and is the only thing that has changed that may have led to this demand.
“But now there’s a possibility that some children on our waiting list will go to school without ever having come off the waiting list.
“As a small centre we’re only licensed for 15 children per day, and our waiting list would be at least double that amount. And our enrolments for next year are already filled.”
Only two local service providers had placements available at the time of writing.
Deniliquin Early Learning Centre did not expect its 16 places to last long, however, with enrolments to fill preschool graduation vacancies opening last week.
And Mathoura Preschool said it always has placements available, but acknowledged it was largely due to the location not being suitable to many families seeking care.